Examining coverage of news and sports using the rules of formal logic.

Monday, July 12, 2010

God's Vandalism

Recently in North Carolina, a patriotic atheist billboard was vandalized. Our good friends at World Net Daily, specifically one Chrissy Satterfield, believe this vandalism was justified. The only criticism I have of this article is that the author assumes the "vandal" is human.

Atheists often claim that miracles never happen anymore and slyly insinuate that this fact indicates a kind of erroneous or fallacious reasoning on the part of believers. But, really, why couldn't this spray painting be a miracle? After all, as Ms. Satterfield attests, this is exactly the kind of graffiti God would write or want to have written.

One might think that this is mundane and non-miraculous spray paint. But, look at that billboard, it's really high. Could a normal human really get that high? Ok, maybe. Admittedly, it's not a burning bush or stone tablets, but anyone could set a bush on fire, chisel some stone tablets, and then tell his people that they came from God. Or write a book claiming that this happened. Or tell a story around a campfire that this happened to someone so that generations later someone else could write a book based on the story you told that this happened to someone. This spray painting is as miraculous as that.

What, you say, there is no evidence that this spray painting was miraculous? I say to you that there is no evidence that it was not miraculous! It takes more faith to deny that God did this than it takes to believe it!

Maybe you think that spray painting a billboard is too petty for the Alpha and Omega, the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good creator of everything? Possibly, but no more petty than telling Ms. Satterfield (she writes that God gave her "a little reminder" about the sign) to encourage that vandalism, and no more petty than cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season (Mark 11:12-14). If God wants to punish our sinfulness and disbelief, and he promised not to destroy the world, then he might choose vandalism. And remember, God works in mysterious ways. Just look at the platypus. I've got nothing against monotremes, but they are freaky.

Could God do a more convincing job than this spray paint? Maybe, but God designed whales with unnecessary leg bones. Maybe God just wanted to leave us room to question his miracles to prove our faith.

I think the belief that this vandalism was a miracle is as well-supported as any miracle in the Bible. And, anyway, isn't it more likely that God did it than that a good Christian would commit a cowardly crime?